Veteran Hong Kong actor Tony Leung will serve as the president of the international competition at this year’s Tokyo Film Festival.
“I am immensely honored to be on the jury team at TIFF this year. Japan is close to my heart in more ways than one and to be involved in celebrating film in this way, is a big deal for me,” Leung said of this appointment this morning.
“From the age of 12, growing up in Hong Kong, I remember going to see all the classic Japanese movies from that time. These exciting trips to the cinema were the start of a great love affair between Japanese film, people, and its culture for me, that has just grown and grown. I’m already expecting the festival to be full of surprises and a lot of fun to preside over, I’m sure. What I hope is that it will be a bit of an adventure, with an audacious lineup of quality films. I just, ‘feel’, when it comes to judging, trusting fellow jurors’ feelings as well as my own, will make a positive contribution to the selection process.”
Leung first participated in the 13th Tokyo Film Festival in 2000, when In the Mood for Love was shown in the Special Screening section. He next visited the festival with Red Cliff: Part 1 and he gave a masterclass at last year’s edition following a screening of 2046 in the World Focus section.
Leung’s extensive credits include l: A City of Sadness (1989), directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien, Cyclo (1995), directed by Tran Anh Hung, and Lust, Caution (2007) by director Ang Lee. Leung also starred in the Academy Award-nominated film Hero (2002), Infernal Affairs (2002) and Marvel’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021). In 2023, he received the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 80th Venice Film Festival.
Ando Hiroyasu, Chairman of the Tokyo Film Festival said of Leung’s appointment: “We are very pleased and deeply honored that Mr. Tony Leung will be serving as Jury President for the International Competition at a time when TIFF is enhancing its presence as a leading film festival in Asia. Mr. Leung, who has an illustrious career as one of the world’s most critically lauded and internationally admired Asian actors, has participated in TIFF a few times in the past and has many fans in Japan. He will be a great addition to this year’s festival.
The Tokyo Film Festival runs October 28 – Nov 6.
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